Grower Champagne Makes Sense

The last few years taught me that Champagne is wine, not just bottled fireworks poised to explode on special occasions.  Champagne’s food and aperitif friendliness are more interesting to me now than at any other time during my twenty seven year wine zag. I used to zag around Champagne while others zigged straight at it.  I [...]

Champagne Musings: A Wine of Place or Pleasure?

Recent chatter around grower produced and single vineyard Champagne is teasing intellectually vinous curiosities. I “think” most winemakers and growers in any wine region usher fruit from vine to barrel to bottle with the idea of producing pleasure inducing liquid.  On a global basis, wine makers rely on vineyard or broader appellation specificity for reasons that [...]

Smart Pick For Global Champagne (Or Any Other) Day

Bringing the right Champagne to a party is always dicey and curious business for me. Picking bubbles for a gathering of wine and food writers creates new layers of complexity and anxiety.  When the occasion falls on the evening (tonight) of a global Champagne celebration that will connect tasters all around the world at their [...]

Menton: Reaching For the Stars (Michelin?) from Boston’s Fort Point

Menton’s team would be discovering and learning in only their third week of service, and we would be celebrating a full and exact 25 years of marriage; an intriguing juxtaposition of experience.  Still, I decided to ring up Eli Feldman, Director of Operations at Barbara Lynch Gruppo, to squeeze into their newest project for our [...]